


aftershock

by PikaCheeka



Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 04:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/pseuds/PikaCheeka
Summary: A power outage and an offhand comment lead Trip to discovering one of Virus’ most embarrassing childhood secrets. Trip can be relentless.





	aftershock

**Author's Note:**

> Wow my third T-rated fic in a row (don't worry; the next one should be smutty). This one is pretty light/comedic and, like so many of my ViTri fics, based off of a convo with acatfeet. I generally headcanon that Virus doesn't remember much of his life before the institute, but this fic is a deviation from that! Might play with this a bit more in the future.

Virus watches his coffee cup jumping across the table and wonders if it’s worth catching as the walls shudder and creak around them. If this keeps getting worse there will be no need to save a mug from falling off the table. He can feel Trip’s presence behind him, and also wonders if he’s going to jump on him, protect him against falling debris if the ceiling collapses. Probably not. And then it’s over. The rattling, the groaning. A minute or two passes before Virus gently pushes his mug back to the center of the table and leans his head back to speak in Trip’s general direction. “Think there will be-”

Then more creaking, and the power goes out.

“There we go. Aftershock.”

"What the hell are we supposed to do now? No computer. No internet. No TV. Can't even charge shit.” Trip hisses in exasperation and looks out the window, going from calm to frustrated within half a second, almost as if he had just been waiting to fly into a rage. “Even the fake sky crapped out. Weren't they supposed to control for this kinda thing? Generators? It’s the year 20XX."

Virus shrugs and taps his spoon against his lips several times, glances over at the younger man who is irritably batting at the curtains now. The false sky blocks out most sunlight, and there’s already so little left. It will be too dark to see within an hour. _There should be generators; this might cost Toue a fortune._ He's curious about this himself, but Trip is getting wound up and he doesn't want to further any discussion that might agitate him. "Earthquake must have taken even those out. Can’t prepare for everything even in the glorious Platinum Jail. Not much to be done for it. Wanna do cards?"

This calms Trip down immediately. An off switch deep in his brain that only Virus has access to. "Can we play strip somethin'?" He raises an eyebrow and smirks as he asks, a corner of his mouth tilting up.

"You're not very subtle, are you?" But it’s only what he expected when he'd mentioned cards. He presses the spoon against his lower lip now and considers, open-mouthed. “Might as well do it now before it gets too cold to take anything off.”

He grins in response, wolfish and crude. "Can't play poker with just two of us."

"Fortunately." Because Trip is brutal in poker, so brutal that it's increasingly difficult to find people foolish enough to play against him and his relentlessly blank expression. He's a master gambler in any game, really, has even figured out how to play the pachinko machines right, calculate how regularly they deal out, which ones to go for at which times. It's not just good fortune either, because he's the one who designed them. He knows he's going to lose no matter what unless they choose a game that is pure luck. "Uhm...what about Go Fish?" It’s stupid, easy, and one at least both of them can cheat at.

Trip only clicks his tongue, still readily accepting anything Virus says. _He’s just like a dog._ "Okay."

Waiting until Trip turns his back to find the cards, he slides his slippers out from under the couch and puts them on. An extra layer, two more items before he has to worry about any skin showing. He knows where this is going, but he won’t let it go there easily.

Trip notices immediately. "You'll need that yea. You're too honest."

"Shh. Just because you cheat at everything. We still have that big LED lantern, right?"

Virus’ mood begins dropping with the temperature. It's only November, but a cold November. It reminds him of his childhood, of curling up beneath the kotatsu in their tiny apartment in the old district. Eating glorified cup ramen and convenience store gyoza and cookies while his mother made him laugh to forget the fact that she'd failed to pay for heat that month, that it had been enough of a struggle to pay the rent without worrying about utilities. It was okay then. He was a kid then. And when kids get a bad lot in life, they just assume that’s how it is, how it’s supposed to be for them. _Nothing like adults_ , he muses as he flips another card over, _who read injustice into every power outage_. He wonders if he can sue his own employer over an earthquake, if it would mean he’d lose his job. Not like he has only one.

 "Why are we taking off our clothes if it's freezing in here?" He’s already lost the slippers, the socks, the cardigan. It had been a day off, which eliminated a tie and an undershirt. Three items left. _My shirt isn’t even long sleeve. Shouldn’t it be warmer? It’s only been an hour or two._

Trip only grins again. He's doing it too much tonight. "Ain't that bad."

It is that bad though. It always ends up that bad, because Trip, with his high body temperature and musculature, rarely has to take anything off. He’s only lost his hoodie and one sock, and he still has two shirts to go. Virus squints at the thermostat, but even with his glasses he can’t see. He’d take his glasses off if he could, but he’d rather be naked than blind with Trip already cheating left and right as it is. Without being able to see what he’s holding, he’d lose the rest of his clothes in seconds.

So he’s run out of options, and he reaches for his pants, unbuttons his fly before Trip interrupts him. "Naw come on. You almost always wear the shirt. Take it off instead."

_Of course I always wear the shirt._ He hesitates, index finger tapping against his fly. There’s a reason he likes leaving his shirt on, or perhaps two reasons, only one of which Trip knows. He's surprised the younger man doesn't prefer him to lose the pants, one step closer to his briefs after all, the typical end goal of this kind of activity. It’s always been enough of a diversion, Trip usually too sex-hungry to care about how rarely Virus displays his bare back.

"I've seen all of you." An undeniable truth. They’d shared a bath together only last night. Trip arches his eyebrows. "Or are you comin' ontah me? Wanna go right now? Will keep you warm."

Virus sighs. Sometimes his scars bother him, especially the one at the base of his neck, though he'd never understood why. Trip has similar ones, as well as a dozen more from fights over the years, and they don't seem to faze him; he even seems to like them, likes Virus’ too. He touches them often enough when he fucks him from behind. But last night in the bath he’d made him nervous, mouthing his throat and grazing the raised edges of his scars with his teeth. He didn’t like being bitten, and he didn’t like the way Trip’s fingers had sunk into his sides more than usual when he’d held his hips. _He probably didn’t even notice, you idiot. He just thinks it’s the scars._ He pulls his shirt up and off, harder than he intends.

Trip's eyes narrow as he studies his torso. He's giving him that hungry look. "Your tits perk up when you get cold. Like when I…"

"That's nice." _Just keep staring at them then._ He squeezes his arms to his sides and pulls his feet up onto the couch, rests his chin on his knee. "Maybe if the damn heat worked this wouldn't be a problem."

"Mm hmm..." Trip suddenly leans over then as Virus reflexively covers his chest. Futile, because the younger man only pokes at his stomach with an index finger, pinches and prods at him. "You're a little fat, aren't you..."

The word hits him like a bullet, a train speeding by just as he steps on the tracks. _Fat. Fat. Fat. No, you asshole, you’re doing exactly what –_ "It's just the way I'm sitting," he snaps. His reaction doesn't match the comment, a harmless jibe not so different from what they always make with one another, but he can't do anything but. He'd been so preoccupied over the scars. He hadn't expected this.

"Nooo...." that little lilt, the taunt, and Virus feels sick. "Definitely a little pudge. I noticed last night, yea? Wanted to have a look." He pokes again, hard enough to make him squirm, curling his body around him in such a way as to accentuate the fat even more before he realizes what he's doing.

"Stop it." He slaps his hand away and stands up abruptly. Not Trip, not him of all people. He's seen him in the most embarrassing, most depraved, of situations, but not that. "I'm going to bed."

"Aw. I keep the light then."

Virus grits his teeth as he picks up his clothing. Neither of them like the dark very much, though Trip’s actively nervous about it, a weakness that could easily be exploited were Virus to ever tell anyone. They stupidly only have one light; they’d only lost power three times in nearly a decade, after all, and it never even occurred to them that they might not want to sleep in the same room every time there’s a power outage. “Fine.”

Trip shrugs, as if the topic is finished, and goes right back to his harangue. He always does, brutal and blunt even if he knows Virus is irritated. "Getting to be a real fattie. Just gonna get worse if you sleep all the time," he yells as the older man leaves the room.

But Trip’s wrong, because he doesn’t sleep.

-

Trip doesn’t bring it up again, doesn’t seem to remember anything beyond the fact that they had lost power for eleven hours and that was an utterly unacceptable happening. Apparently what he’d said was forgettable to him, but that isn’t enough for Virus.

He nearly stops eating over the next week, living off black coffee and cigarettes and the occasional convenience store onigiri or salad that’s nearly all cabbage, the rare protein bar. Going out to eat anywhere that doesn’t offer alcohol is out of the question, as he can’t just sit there and drink water while Trip inhales double servings and nonchalantly asks why he isn’t eating, and alcohol can be high-calorie, so he merely stays in most nights. He remembers which meal replacement drinks work for him, which ones taste the best, and he knocks them off whenever his room-mate isn’t around.

He spends too much time at the gym, going in after work, running for hours on the treadmill every day, sitting in the sauna far longer than he knows he should, telling Trip to fuck off every time he asks if he is training for a marathon. _No, you asshole. It's because I'm fat. It's because you grabbed at my stomach and harassed me._ He doesn't remember ever being this irritated with him, a near-fury that arises every time he steps onto the scale and examines the number. Falling now, falling lower than it’s been in years, but that hardly matters if Trip knows there's any fat to poke. When the younger man catches him on the scale, he only asks him if he needs better exercise in bed, an invitation that irritates him now.

Virus himself no longer initiates sex, ignores his own arousal and pushes Trip away whenever he gets too touchy. He'll just pinch and squeeze. Even if he doesn't say anything... It's too much. Because even if he keeps quiet, he'll still touch him too much, still leave bruises on the softer parts of his body and remind him of their differences. He thinks about finding a whore and taking her from behind, but he hasn't been able to bring himself to do that either. Because he isn't sure if he can even get it up enough to fuck, even though it's always been a critical release for him, a need the way others need food. One of the reasons why he and Trip had always made such good room-mates. Regular, nearly instantaneous sex with no need to put any effort into it. No flirtation, no seduction, no consent necessary more often than not. Convenient. Usually.

With all of this, his over-exertion and his inability to find any sort of release in food or sex, he begins slacking at work, failing to file reports, showing up late, tired, bored, irritable. And Trip goes along with all of it, as he expects. Because he follows him, even if he is fat, even if he's clearly getting increasingly uncomfortable with the situation. Sei comments on him being scatter-brained. Toue comments on him being useless. Takahashi just wrings his hands and sighs, at least until Virus stops showing up entirely.

Three days after he stops showing up at work, he begins to feel truly ill, lying under the covers, sniffing and coughing. His stomach feels hollow, empty, and his entire body aches. He knows full well it’s his own fault, and is grateful that Trip doesn’t mention it when Virus comments on how he feels worn down, exhausted. There isn’t even a passing jibe over what could be conceived as a sexual comment.

As he lies there, he dreams of his childhood. He remembers his mother sighing a lot, pinching his arms, pulling clothes over him that were always a little tight in the belly, the joints. She couldn't afford buying him new clothes whenever he grew - he knows this now, but at the time, he'd only been angry with her for not keeping up with him. He remembers demanding food when hungry or bored, but often only when wanting attention. He remembers his mother's exasperated expressions as she rooted through the fridge, tried to resist but eventually gave him what he wanted just to shut him up, to give herself some peace. And he remembers the times she spoiled him, came home with a tub of ice cream and cuddled with him under a blanket to watch a movie, the two of them polishing off several thousand calories within an hour. For all of it, she never laughed at him, never pointed out the obvious fact despite the equally obvious fact that it concerned her.

He'd foolishly never expected it from Trip, simply assumed that he would be the same as his mother. Meanwhile the younger man hovers, regularly checks on him just as his mother would. He's strangely quiet, nearly as quiet around Virus as he is around everyone else, a relief that gradually grows unnerving. Still he finds himself unwilling to talk to him. Unwilling to talk to anyone.

He finally picks up on the seventh phone call on the fifth day of sulking in bed. Trip had continually charged it for him even when he told him not to, which resulted in an endless amount of ringing. He could ignore anyone in the Yakuza for up to a week at time – they all knew he and Trip had another job, would cut him some slack for a while. He could ignore anyone calling regarding drugs or Morphine, because they were all worthless little shits anyway. But anything related to his proper job, the job he had to pay taxes on, was harder to avoid.

"You two skipped work. Again. You usually call." Takahashi. Little bitch doesn't even bother to have a conversation, make small talk, be pleasant for once. He must always have a stick up his ass.

"What?" His voice cracks, throat raw. He's barely spoken in a few days now.

"Ah." Silence for a moment while Taka's clearly mulling it over. "Are you sick?"

"Yea yea." _What do you think?_

"And Trip's home with you? Taking care of you?" He sounds guilty now.

"Something like that." Trip's been keeping some distance after a few well-aimed kicks, but he’s still been around. Incessant, patient, calming, a slow brooding force as always. It’s ironic that he is known for his violent temper when he so rarely rises to it, that he is known for carelessness and indifference when he can’t let Virus get up to use the toilet without jumping up to see if he’s okay. But _taking care of him_ is pushing it.

"It's not....related to the experiments, is it?" He's always been paranoid about that, always worried that whatever shit was forced upon Virus and Trip as children would eventually catch up on them. As if he's the one who has done it to them. Or as if he has survivor's guilt - the one working for Toue who had a half-decent childhood, who didn't worry about being cut open every day, or whether or not the next test drug would kill him, or if a doctor was going to touch him in a way that scared him, or if he was going to be the one to end up in the incinerator in the basement after a surgery went wrong. Sometimes he hates him, bitchy little Taka who thinks his life is so horrible because he only got into the second-best university in the country, because his parents sometimes asked him why he wasn't married yet, because his older sister liked to embarrass him. People who have it easy, who have never suffered, still always find a way to be dissatisfied, to play the victim. Even if all they have to despair over is their lack of reasonable things to despair over.

There is a lot he can say, but he only says, "No."

"Okay." Takahashi exhales slowly in what is obviously relief. _No more need for survivor’s guilt._ "Then, uhm. Just call next time."

"Yea, sure." He hangs up almost before the word is even out of his mouth. And then he turns it off, tosses it off the bed, and burrows deeply beneath the blankets. It's warm under there, and he can't have enough warmth now. Warmth he never had as a child but for the extra pounds that his mother constantly sighed about. Ironic how things end up, he thinks absently as he slips off.

Nearly an hour later, he awakens to Trip banging his door open. He used his foot. He always kicks it _. He knows I hate when he kicks it._ "You never knock."

"Nope." English, which he often switches to when proud of himself. _No pah._ Also what he does when he dumps people after one night. A behavior that tends to come before he gets slapped by women. And Virus, once or twice. "I cooked you something."

"I don't want it," he scowls. He doesn’t bother to roll over and face him, much less get up. He can’t imagine Trip cooking anything appetizing that wasn’t pre-packaged, not that he does much better.

"MMmm. Yup."

He isn't sure if it's on purpose, if Trip is only taunting him, trying to bully him into eating, or if he's being his usual oblivious self and just sitting down on the nearest surface to eat. But he does sit down right beside his bed, on his nightstand no less, and he begins eating loudly. He slurps the noodles, smacks his lips, chews with his mouth open. And it smells unexpectedly good. "What is it?" he asks finally.

"Uh. Was an instant ramen. I just added some stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Yea. Takahashi called again. Me this time. He said 'cause he's worried about you but I think he's mad, too. So I hafta cook healthy things now." He's talking slowly, in that way he always does when he's confused, always growing more so as he continues talking.

He finally rolls over then, props himself up on his elbow and waits until Trip meets his eyes. "I don't think that explains 'stuff'."

He hesitates. "I didn't add natto, what the fuck's that. He mentioned it but... looked gross at the store." It doesn't sound like he's going to say anything else.

Virus inhales slowly and lets it out through his nose. There's no point. Trip's embarrassed now, uncomfortable with having possibly done something kind. Even if it is for Virus. "Let me have some?"

The grin cracks slowly, his lone dimple appearing alongside. "Really?"

His voice softens. "Yes, come here." He drags himself into a sitting position. Trip like this, like a dog told he's done well, his invisible tail wagging, is a weakness of his. He'd always been weak for him when he's like this, so eager to please, so devoted, adoring. Cute, all ninety-one kilograms of him as he hands the bowl over. _Even if he’s wearing my shirt._

He knows it within the first bite, the suspicion proven true. _It’s the same, somehow the same._ What his mother had made for him so any years ago. Instant ramen, upgraded. It’s impossible for Trip to have known this, another one of those peculiar coincidences that always happens between them, an indication that they were to have whatever relationship they have from the beginning. _He probably wasn’t even in the womb yet when my mother first made this for me. And yet he can be so much like her sometimes._ Yes, whatever relationship they have had, he himself doesn’t understand. He studies Trip over the edge of the bowl, inhaling the steam and reveling in the scent.

In return, Trip watches him eat, an act that would normally unnerve him, but he can't be bothered being angry now, because suddenly all that matters is food. Especially good food, and what Trip had made is unexpectedly good. Neither one of them ever cooked much, after all. It's nearly gone before the younger man finally speaks. "Why'd you stop eating much anyway?" He sounds confused, unnerved.

"You know why. You called me fat," he all but spits the word as he puts the bowl down on the nightstand now, appetite lost. There was no need to bring this up, was there? "I got self-conscious."

"I was jes teasing. Joking." He has the sense to look embarrassed, at least. "I heard you were a fat little kid from Takahashi one day. Don't actually believe it."

_That._ So that's where it came from. Not from the half a kilogram he'd picked up last month. It doesn't really surprise him though; it had to come out eventually. He takes a deep breath. This might be even more humiliating than Trip knowing his birth name or his parents. But there's no point in trying to get around it. _You overreacted, you fool. He will always be suspicious now._ "You should."

"Eh?"

Virus waits as it dawns on him, as his eyes light up and he makes that crooked grin again. "Oh. Oh. You really were pudgy."

He sighs, nods before running his hand through his hair. It feels slippery, thin, lank. He remembers suddenly he hasn't showered in a few days, has barely even left the bed, and even if Trip's an asshole, at least he hasn't mentioned that. "Yep."

"How long?"

Another sigh.  He’s going to find out anyway. Trip’s been able to get whatever information he wanted out of him since they started fucking ten years ago. He’s too good at making him beg. "Until I was eight."

"Oh god," he leans back, slams his hands together and laughs. "Right before we met. You were a little pudge for a while. When d'ya get glasses?"

"I was six."

"So both at the same time...Chubby little four-eyes. Poor you..."

It's the exact reaction he expects. Delight at the affirmation that Virus was even more awkward, outcast, than he was at that age. _And you couldn't talk and just punched everyone you saw and cried a lot._ But again he keeps quiet.

"You were thin when I met you. Though...you had that baby fat face. The one you still got, yea…” He’s reaching forward now, grabbing Virus’ cheek before he can stop him. “Bet you were cute back then."

"I was fat. That's not cute." Though he doesn’t make any attempt to pull away from the fingers now caressing the back of his head. Nobody but his mother had ever called him cute before he got to the institute, where being called cute stopped being a good thing and indeed became a very bad thing. At school he’d only ever been poked, mocked, harassed. Overweight and bespectacled was not a good way to spend his early school years. It certainly didn’t help that he was difficult, intelligent and sarcastic and unsure of how to properly behave.

"Cuuute. Soft and pudgy. Did you have those little folds on the tops of your thighs? I wish I could have seen you. Fat Virus." He laughs again. "It'd be fun. If I got to see you like that now, like you at seven or something."

"What would you do?"

"Play with you." He hesitates, probably sees Virus' eyes boring into him. "Not like that."

"Bullshit." _You were talking about my thighs._ He knows Trip, knows there is no way he wouldn't push the boundaries if he had the chance. It wouldn’t even occur to him not to.

He drops his gaze before shrugging. "Maybe a little like that."

"It's okay. I wanted to do stuff with you when you were little." He narrows his eyes. "I did sometimes, touched you when you were sleeping."

"What'd you do?"

It's one of those rare moments when he lies to Trip. He'd touched him in his sleep a few times, sure. Smacked him when he snored. Kicked or elbowed him when he turned around. Sometimes one would wake up with the other half-sprawled over him. That was the extent of it, as curious as he'd been, as cute as the younger boy had been. Because Trip had been a stupid puppy cute, the kind you wanted to pat on the head and immediately wipe the dirt off your hands afterwards, not the kind to grope and jerk off on. That came later, when he hit puberty at eleven and developed a sharp jaw and wide shoulders that he took another decade to fully grow into. "Can't tell you. It's too bad. You'll think I'm sick."

He's almost whining. "You are sick n’ I don’t care. What'd you do?"

"Nope." He changes the subject. Better to let Trip stress over this for the rest of the evening, better to make him feel like he has to fuck it out of him, even if he hasn’t bathed in four days. "Hey, isn't it funny how you were a gangly little six year old and I was the chubby one?" _And isn’t it funny how even though you’re much heavier than me now, I’m the one who has to worry about ten grams of fat?_

“I didn’t get enough food.”

“Uh huh. You made up for it.” He figures it’s bullshit. Trip doesn’t have the same health problems he has, so he likely got some form of real nutrition as a kid. Maybe not enough, given the way he inhales food, but more than him. It doesn’t matter though; all his lies to Virus are harmless. He picks up the bowl and grins. “Make me some more.”

“For real?” 

“It was good.”

“Are you gonna get fat again?” He looks almost hopeful.

“From two bowls of ramen? Don’t think about it.” He waves the bowl in his face and grins, showing too many teeth as he always does when trying to lure Trip in. "If you make it… Hm, you know, what I did to you as a kid, I'll show you."

It’s enough. Trip does what he’s told.

Virus grins smugly as he settles back onto the pillows, smooths the blankets in front of him, and looks forward to slapping Trip full across the face. 

 

 

 


End file.
